Do you remember Ember? Maybe not by name, but perhaps you recall the company’s defining concept: a mug that keeps your drink at your preferred temperature[1], and not a degree cooler, for hours at a time. On Wednesday, it got just a little bit better.
Please know up front that the latest news from the Ember Ceramic Mug and Travel Mug is about as iterative as it gets. In fact, it’s barely about the mugs themselves at all. Instead, the associated app now integrates with Apple Health to help with easier caffeine tracking, a feature that Apple has offered since 2014[2]. The travel mug version also comes in white now, and you’ll be able to buy both in the Apple Store.
Not so world-bending, as far as improvements go. But take a step back. No, take several steps, however many it takes to get to October 2015, when the Ember Travel Mug[3] first launched on Indiegogo. Ember was then the long-simmering dream of thermal scientist Clay Alexander. It epitomized of certain conceptual category, extremely common in Kickstarter’s heyday, whose potential usefulness was greatly outpaced by its specificity and expense.
The mere fact that Ember’s magic mugs not only exist, but work as advertised, and continue to improve? That's worth celebrating.
When first Ember announced the Travel Mug, it gave itself a six-month window before it would make the product available. Anyone who’s dabbled in promising, crowdfunded gadgets knows how much can happen within that gap—or more specifically, what can not happen, namely the actual manufacturing of the product at hand. The web is littered with projects that, however well-intentioned, never made it off the launchpad. Or, honestly, anywhere near...